Strike a blow for the average person: incorporate

So corporations want to be people. They want unfettered access to our constitutional rights and the U.S. Supreme Court has given it to them.

Well, I want to be a corporation, too. That's why I founded the People are Corporations, Too PAC (PACPAC, for short).

Our aim is simple: If corporations get our constitutional rights, then we should get their tax breaks.

Raising my family is my business, and it has been ever since I went off to college. Until then, I was not much more than a product of my parents' corporation. My personal corporate status was certainly cemented when my son was born in 1989.

What do I produce? His name is Max. He works in the summer. He's getting an education. He's going to pay taxes for the rest of his life.

As a corporation, I can write off almost every single dollar I spend producing Max.

I can deduct the cost of food, housing, clothes and electricity keeping him healthy and warm.

I can deduct every single penny I spend on his education.

I can deduct gas to take him to and from the thousands of practices, lessons and events that have helped shape him into a worthwhile product for the future.

I can write off the cost of all those books he read, all those instruments he played. If I had a good enough accountant, I might even be able to deduct the cost of the toys and video games that help increase his dexterity and have kept him happy.

Corporations get to write off almost every single cost of the widgets they produce, from the factories and the materials they use to the money they spend to promote their products. Some corporations can deduct so much that they pay little or nothing in taxes, and when they do pay taxes, their rate is far less than what I pay, especially on the state level.

Now they want freedom of speech to spend millions, maybe even billions, of dollars influencing our elections.

I see through their ploy. They already control the economy. Now they want to control the political process, too. And I want to be part of their scheme.

So last month, I went down to the secretary of state's office, filed myself as a corporation and paid my $100 filing fee. Then I created my own PAC.

It's time to take our power back.

When it comes time to pay my 2012 Oregon state taxes, I'm going to pay $150. That's all S-corporations at my income level have to pay, so that's what I'm going to pay, too.

When the state comes after me for not paying enough taxes, I'm going to get a good lawyer and sue. Maybe I'll make it all the way to the Supreme Court. And maybe those wise justices will decide that if corporations are people, then people are corporations, too. Geoff Sugerman is a longtime political consultant in Oregon. Read more at peoplearecorporations.org.